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The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

Chapters 103–108

Chapters 114–117

Chapter 109: The Judge

Villefort buries himself in work, building the
case against Benedetto. On the day of the trial, he finally approaches
Madame Villefort and makes clear that he knows she is a murderer.
He tells his wife that he will not let her die on the scaffold,
as that would bring shame to both himself and to his son. Villefort
instead instructs her to take her own life, using the poison she
used to commit her murders. If she has not done this by the time
he returns from court, he warns, he will publicly denounce her and
have the authorities execute her.

Chapter 110: The Assizes

Benedetto’s trial is a major event, and all of the fashionable
Parisians turn out at the courthouse to watch. During the trial,
Benedetto announces that he is the son of Villefort. He tells the
story of his birth—how his father buried him alive, how a man then
stabbed Villefort and stole the box in which he was buried, and
how he was taken in and raised by adoptive parents. The court asks
for proof, but Villefort interrupts and declares himself guilty.

Chapter 111: Expiation

[H]e felt he had passed beyond the bounds
of vengeance, and that he could no longer say, “God is for and with
me.”

On his way back home, Villefort regrets condemning
his wife to death, realizing that he is no more innocent than she.
He decides that he will let her live, and that they will flee France
together. However, when he comes home, he finds that she has already
followed his orders. In addition to killing herself, Madame Villefort
has also killed Edward, unwilling to let her son live on without
her.

Seeking solace, Villefort runs to see his father, Noirtier,
who is accompanied by the Abbé Busoni. The Abbé reveals his true
identity as Edmond Dantès. Grabbing him by the wrist, Villefort
leads Dantès to the corpses of his wife and son, and he asks if
Dantès’s vengeance is complete now. At the sight of the
dead boy, Dantès’s face takes on a look of anguish. He tries to
revive Edward with the powerful elixir that he uses earlier, but
is unsuccessful. Dantès approaches Villefort in order to offer him
comfort in the knowledge that Valentine is not really dead, but
Villefort has apparently gone insane. For the first time, Dantès
doubts the justice of the project he has been carrying out. Back at
home, he tells Maximilian that they will leave Paris the next day.

Chapter 112: The Departure

The next day Maximilian goes to say goodbye to Julie and
Emmanuel. Monte Cristo comes to pick up Maximilian, and they leave Paris
together. As they go, Monte Cristo looks out over the city and declares
his work of vengeance done.

Chapter 113: The House in the Allées de Meillan

Maximilian and Monte Cristo arrive in Marseilles
in time to watch Albert board a ship bound for his military post
in Africa. Maximilian goes to visit his father’s grave, while Monte
Cristo pays a visit to Mercédès, who is now living in the small
house that Louis Dantès once inhabited. Monte Cristo promises Mercédès
that he will help her son in any way he can. Mercédès expresses
passive resignation toward her ill fate, claiming that it must be
God’s will. Monte Cristo chides her, reminding her that God created
man with free will. Monte Cristo then meets Maximilian in the cemetery
and tells him to wait in Marseilles in several days, since he must
take care of some business in Italy.

Analysis: Chapters 109–113

Chapter 111 marks
the second major turning point of The Count of Monte Cristo, the
moment when Monte Cristo finally begins to doubt whether he is justified
in taking the place of Providence. With Edward’s death, the seeds
of discomfort that are sown in Chapter 95—when
Monte Cristo realizes that he could easily have caused the death
of the innocent Valentine—now bloom into full-fledged torment. Understanding
that he has indirectly caused the end of an innocent life, Monte
Cristo no longer feels that his actions are in total alignment
with God’s will. Having buoyed himself all along with the belief
that his mission is ordained by God, this blow to his confidence
is enormous. Some versions of the novel include a scene in which
Monte Cristo returns to the Château d’If, looking for a sign that his
mission of vengeance was justified. He finds this sign in the form
of the Abbé Faria’s manuscript, which begins with the biblical quote “Thou
shalt tear out the teeth of the dragon and trample the lion’s underfoot,
thus saith the Lord.” With this scene omitted, the justification
for Monte Cristo’s mission is never confirmed, leaving Monte Cristo
hovering in doubt as to the morality of his mission.

The last act Monte Cristo makes before plunging headlong
into doubt is his attempt to revive Edward using his elixir. This
potion, with its seemingly magical ability to heal, is a symbol
for Monte Cristo’s hubris—his prideful belief that he, like his
elixir, is capable of any feat. His hubris reaches its height in
this scene, culminating in the assertion that his elixir actually
gives him the power to bring a boy back to life. Of course, Monte
Cristo is incapable of granting life, and his seemingly unassailable
confidence in himself and his elixir is finally shaken.

Monte Cristo’s final conversation with Mercédès pits
his active approach to life against her passive resignation, and
the former clearly emerges victorious. When Mercédès declares that
she has “become passive in the hands of the Almighty,” Monte Cristo counters
that God does not approve of such resignation. Free will, Monte
Cristo contends, is the thing that makes one human. Only by exercising
one’s will, asserting one’s individual desires against the opposing
forces of the world, can one please God. This conversation is tinged
with a slightly accusatory undertone, since it is Mercédès’s passive
resignation that led her to marry Fernand Mondego against her own
better judgment and her own desires. Lacking the courage to resist,
she resigned herself to the fate she saw spread out before her rather
than struggle for what she really wanted and knew was right. In
her passivity, Mercédès stands in stark contrast to Monte Cristo,
Eugénie Danglars, and her own son, Albert, all of whom try to take
an individual stand against fate rather than passively resign themselves
to what the world offers them.

It is worth noting that the two most passive
characters in the novel, Mercédès and Valentine, are portrayed as
models of femininity, while the proactive characters are primarily
men. The only proactive female character is the excessively
masculine Eugénie, who can be interpreted as a cross-dressing lesbian.
Dumas suggests that passiveness is a female trait, noting that Valentine
“could not understand that vigorous nature [of Eugénie’s] which
appeared to have none of the timidities of woman.” Given that Dumas
portrays an active stand against destiny as far superior to passive
resignation—and his further implication that passive resignation,
the cause of Mercédès’s downfall, is even sinful—we can argue that
Dumas is not overly generous to his female characters.

Suicide, a common motif of the novel as well as of Romantic
literature in general, is presented as an obvious response to abandonment
by a beloved. Even before Valentine falls ill, Maximilian has prepared
to take his own life in the event that she ever marries Franz d’Epinay.
As we see in the last chapter of the novel, Haydée proves her sincere
affection for Monte Cristo by declaring that she will take her life
if he leaves her. Yet the act of suicide—the most dramatic means
of giving up the fight against fate—seems to fly in the face of Monte
Cristo’s stance against passive resignation. Maximilian provides
a possible insight into this seeming inconsistency, as he explains
that he wants to take his own life because “all [his] hopes are
blighted.” Monte Cristo considers hope the only thing that makes
life worth living; thus, it is plausible that his ultimate judgment
on suicide would be that once all hope is gone—as some people think
it is when they lose their beloved—suicide may be reasonable, as
there is nothing left for which to fight.

This for the full version if your not reading the full version this will get you even more confused than the book does. The Count of Monte Christo is a good book but not when your confused about the Plot i'm in the middle of reading it and think the spark notes really help.